Tuscaloosa County District Attorney Lyn Head on Wednesday asked the County Commission to sharply increase funding for the prosecutor's office, a move she said would speed up prosecutions and ease jail overcrowding.

By Jason MortonStaff Writer

Tuscaloosa County District Attorney Lyn Head on Wednesday asked the County Commission to sharply increase funding for the prosecutor's office, a move she said would speed up prosecutions and ease jail overcrowding.“The citizens of our county need this,” said Head, who was appointed by Gov. Robert Bentley to fulfill the unexpired term of Tommy Smith after Smith retired Nov. 1. “We need money that we can count on so we can keep the prosecutors we have.”The last time the County Commission agreed to give a significant financial appropriation to the local district attorney's office was in the mid-1970s when it voted to dedicate $200,000 each year.More recently, an additional $18,500 was approved for technological needs, meaning the county's annual appropriation to the DA's office is $218,500. That means 8 percent of the DA's total budget comes from Tuscaloosa County.Now, Head is asking that the county's appropriation be increased by $855,865 for a total of $1.08 million. This would make up about 38 percent of the Office of the District Attorney's annual budget, which she said is now running a deficit of about $460,000.The County Commission took no action on Head's request, saying only that it would be considered as part of the annual budgetary requests that county leaders receive each year. Head was told she could expect an answer by Oct. 1, when the county is legally required to have an approved operating budget for the next fiscal year.If approved, the district attorney said the money would be used to hire additional lawyers and staff. She said the additional manpower would reduce the caseload that the office's 10 prosecutors now support.In a letter to the County Commission that outlined her request, Head said the local DA's office employs eight prosecutors who deal strictly with felony caseloads. By her estimate, each of these prosecutors is handling between 700 and 750 cases at any given time.With the additional funding, Head said she would hire enough new attorneys to reduce the current prosecutors' caseloads by at least half.This, she said, would speed case prosecutions, offsetting the county's appropriation by reducing the population of the Tuscaloosa County Jail, where suspects can wait a year or longer — and sometimes three years, if accused of capital crimes — before having their cases resolved.Chief Deputy Ron Abernathy concurred with Head's assessment, noting that the jail's population was at 641 on Wednesday — that's 101 more inmates than the facility was designed to hold — at an approximate cost of $45 per inmate per day to county taxpayers.“It's a constant dilemma,” Abernathy said of the overcrowding. “(But) we don't want to build another jail.”County Commission Chairman Hardy McCollum has been steadfast in his opposition to increasing the funding for local prosecutors, mainly because the Office of the District Attorney is a function of the state government.The state, McCollum said, should increase its financial commitment to the office.But Head, along with others charged with prosecuting the state's criminals, maintain that the funding appropriation from the state is too low — and too inconsistent — to adequately handle its task.She referred to four of Alabama's most populated counties — Madison, Mobile, Montgomery and Jefferson — where county governments fund between 30.5 percent and 85 percent of their respective district attorney's offices.For some, like Jefferson, Mobile and Montgomery counties, acts of the Alabama Legislature require the county governments to fund certain positions or aspects of the state's prosecution services.But legally required or not, local district attorney's offices need the help of the county governments to operate at a functional level, said Randy Hillman, executive director of the state's Office of Prosecution Services and the Alabama District Attorney's Association.Alabama counties contribute about $10 million toward district attorney operations across the state, and the vast majority — about 80 percent or 90 percent, Hillman said — goes to prosecutors serving Huntsville, Birmingham, Montgomery and Mobile. “The rest of the DAs in the state are basically standing there begging,” Hillman said. “The vast majority of (judicial) circuits in this state get very little or none from their counties.”The Office of Prosecution Services serves as the administrative arm of every district attorney's office in the state, and Hillman said it costs between $93 million and $95 million to ensure each judicial district remains operational.Last year, the Alabama Legislature appropriated $27 million to be spread among the 72 offices of the state's 42 judicial districts. Factor in the $10 million or so contributed by county governments and the rest, Hillman said, must be found elsewhere.“Anything short of selling Krispy Kremes on the steps of the county courthouse to keep the doors open, we have to do,” he said. “It's such a hodgepodge and such a bizarre way of funding the DAs, there is no rhyme or reason for it. ...“I don't know of another state agency that has to make up that percentage of their budget to stay alive.”